If you want to lose weight the healthy way and keep the pounds off for good, you should slim down at a slow and steady rate. Most experts recommend that you lose roughly one to two pounds per week, even though you may not consistently lose two pounds every week. So how do you reach that goal? You adjust your energy balance to reach the correct calorie deficit. To lose one pound per week, you need to reach a total calorie deficit of about 3500...

Are you intrigued by those Internet ads claiming to know “the secret to shedding belly fat” or “the one trick to losing belly fat”? If so, you’re not alone. Americans spend countless hours and billions of dollars trying anything and everything to attain a flat stomach. But is there really a magic bullet — a fast and easy way to get rid of stubborn belly fat — as so many ads and commercials claim? In short, no. (Yeah, we were bummed to hear...

If you're tired of that section of skin that rolls over the top of your jeans (commonly referred to as a 'muffin top' or 'love handles'), no shame; you're far from the only one looking for how to slim down in this area. The hard truth: No matter how many lower abs, obliques, and lower back exercises you do, you can't tone your muffin top into oblivion. It's fat, meaning the only way to truly get rid of it is to lose weight. That being said,...

You’ve tried everything to lose weight. Not just exercising, but every kind of exercise—running, lifting, yoga, Pilates, CrossFit. Not just dieting, but every kind of diet—Weight Watchers, Atkins, vegetarian/vegan, Paleo, low carb, SlimFast, Beachbody. Not just supplements—but hundreds of dollars of pills, powders, shakes, you name it. Not just self improvement, but every kind of self improvement—meditation, prayer, deep breathing, affirmation,...

Turns out, more than 60 percent of women say their skin is sensitive, but most of them don’t actually have chronic sensitive skin, says the New York City dermatologist Michelle Henry, M.D. “Many women are experiencing what we call sensitized skin,” she says. “That’s when something in the environment changes the skin’s normal function. The results are a stinging sensation, burning, and physical markers like redness.” Sound like your skin? Luckily,...

Maintaining a trim midsection does more than make you look great—it can help you live longer. Larger waistlines are linked to a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes and even cancer. Losing weight, especially belly fat, also improves blood vessel functioning and also improves sleep quality. It’s impossible to target belly fat specifically when you diet. But losing weight overall will help shrink your waistline; more importantly, it will help...

The word stress just brings up bad vibes, right? So, it makes sense that cortisol, "stress hormone" would have a bad reputation. But "cortisol is not, in itself, bad—it's just a hormone," says Mike Molloy, Ph.D., founder of M2 Performance Nutrition, who's studied microbiology and immunology. "But the dosage and amounts of cortisol in the body need to be right." And one of the things that can throw (or keep) your cortisol levels off is exercise—especially...